XRPDX joined with our allies in Veterans For Peace on Saturday, February 5, the national day of action to say: No War With Russia! Sixty concerned citizens gathered in front of Senator Wyden’s office building and along nearby Lloyd Boulevard. Wyden, along with Senator Merkley, is a co-sponsor of the “Rush and Crush” Senate Bill 3488, to rush $500 million for weapons to the Ukrainian government and crush the Russian economy with sanctions. Where’s the urgency about getting hundreds of millions of dollars to deal with the climate crisis?
Military emissions, and the overall military “contributions” to the global climate crisis, have long gone unmentioned (let alone protested), by major “Green” organizations, the UN COP process, the media, and the general public. That silence is now coming to an end. At the People’s Summit organized by the COP26 Coalition, several webinars on militarism and the climate crisis were held (see one of them here), and a large antiwar/propeace march took place in Glasgow on November 4. XRPDX supports House Resolution 767, which requires the Pentagon to report, then reduce, its greenhouse gas emissions.
War is the most destructive human activity, to people and planet. Every metric ton of CO2 emitted by the movement of military troops, weapons, equipment and vehicles around Europe adds to global greenhouse gas emissions. Even without a shot being fired, these emissions are doing harm. The Ukraine Crisis has much to do with the U.S. blocking Russia’s Nord Stream 2 methane pipeline to Germany, and with the profits of the military-industrial complex. A hot war in Ukraine would be a climate, environmental and humanitarian disaster – it must be averted. Climate justice demands negotiations not escalation; peace, not war.
